CHENNAI: For police, who are sentinels on the law-andorder front, the first year of the DMK government meant battling unceasing waves of challenges. They kept firefighting one crisis after the another, and realised, suddenly, one year is over.
The hard grind of the assembly polls, counting and consequences of results notwithstanding, police had to remain on their toes during the raging second wave of Covid-19 during which the state witnessed countless deaths and overflowing hospitals, coupled with medicine and oxygen shortages. Even while enforcing the pandemic protocols in public places, police had to man all hospitals, escort oxygen tankers, and regulate medicine LAW&
seekers at designated locations. Alongside, they had to insulate their own khaki fraternity from infection and death. The deadly second wave infected almost 60% of the state police force and left at least 102 police personnel, including an assistant commissioner, and inspector, dead. No sooner than the second when the southern districts were rocked by castebased murders. In developments reminiscent of the 1990s, a man from the Thevar community was found dead with his head severed in Tirunelveli on September 13, 2021.
